The Indo-Australian Vote and Milan’s Delhi Reunion

Over the weekend, Australian voters elected a new government with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Anthony Albanese at the helm, ousting the ruling Liberal-National Coalition for the first time in a decade. Key to the ALP’s landmark victory was the vote of the Indo-Australians, now the second largest immigrant group in Australia.

A new Carnegie study co-authored by Devesh Kapur, Caroline Duckworth, and our very own Milan Vaishnav, sheds light on three elements of the Indo-Australian community’s political behavior: the community’s political preferences, leadership preferences, and policy priorities. 

This week, we put Milan in the hot seat to discuss his new study along with Caroline Duckworth, a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in Carnegie’s South Asia Program. We also wanted to turn the tables on Milan to ask him about his recent trip to Delhi—his first in the COVID-era. We talk about India’s ongoing heat wave, the political mood in the country, and the fractures in Indian federalism.

 

1. Caroline Duckworth, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav, “Indo-Australian Voters and the 2022 General Election,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 18, 2022.
2. Jonathan Kay, “A Heat Wave Has Pushed India’s Dysfunctional Power System Into a Crisis,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 12, 2022.